


it's dangerous to go alone (take me, I'll be your player two)

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Actual Cat Adrien Agreste, Actual Ladybug Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste Needs a Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03 Gamer 2.0, F/M, Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting, Identity Reveal, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Has Anxiety, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Has PTSD, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Podfic Welcome, Post-Reveal Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-07-01 12:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19838416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: "Are you sure?" Chat Noir scoots a little closer. Ladybug can feel his body heat. "You look pretty upset. Seemed pretty upset yesterday afternoon, too," he adds. "Might have won that tournament faster if you weren't so upset going in.""Stop bringing logic into this."Chat shrugs, a gesture Ladybug feels more than sees. "All right then. I'd still rather know what it is than not. Or at least know what I can do to help you."I'm giving you some extra time.I trust you to bring me back."You should trust me less."Chat stiffens beside her. "What?"—She didn't mean to say that.It's true, though. It's not likeI'll take a coleslaw homeorI'm organizing a school-wide macaron tastingorI'm in love with you, where she regrets saying it as soon as she knows she's said it, but she has to stand by it or be proved a liar. It'strue. The only thing wrong with it is that Chat Noir doesn't want to believe it."You said you trust me to bring you back," she reminds him. "You should trust me less."Chat stares at her, stricken."I'm sorry," she mumbles. "I can't be good enough."





	it's dangerous to go alone (take me, I'll be your player two)

Marinette needs to study, get good grades, university admission. Needs to work bakery shifts to help her parents, practice business skills, pay for fabric (and Tikki's raids). Needs to fulfill design commissions quickly and well, to get experience, reputation, emergency money. Needs to get past basics in accounting, photography, Mandarin, LSF. Needs to meet with Master Fu to learn more about Miraculouses. Needs to—

Needs to—

She wakes, slumped over her sewing machine. It's still on. The seam she was working on is crooked. She'll have to rip it out and do it again; several minutes' more work she doesn't have _time_ for.

Chat Noir didn't scream, when he took that ring out.

—Ring out, hah. Marinette has held the Cat Miraculous in her bare hand: she knows the weight of it. That was the real thing on her finger, the _real_ Cataclysm that answered her command: not the pale imitation Copycat used, moving slower than Chat Noir's power and with (she's certain) far less capacity, and not the flimsy facsimile Chameleon employed. She has no doubt Chat Noir _wanted_ his power to obey her, since he couldn't do it himself. She is certain Plagg would agree. Why was the ring active? Why was the ring on her hand? _Why_ , when Chat forfeited the round, was the ring available to _Ladybug_ , not to—

Chat Noir didn't scream. The silence of that moment corsets her: she can hardly move nor breathe.

He's fallen farther; they both have. He's been hit harder; they both have. The impact probably didn't even hurt as much as Miraculer's copied Cataclysm.

He didn't—he—

He was ready to _leave_ her.

Marinette pushes herself to her feet, wobbly: fire trickles down her spine, ignored. Tikki's…probably asleep? Probably asleep, but— "Tikki," she says, "spots on!"

Tikki wakes with a squeak and vanishes into the pink light of Ladybug's armor.

Ladybug goes up to her balcony and leans back against the railing. Chat Noir's tracker isn't active, because it is three hours yet till dawn and he is sleeping. She opens the messaging app anyway: she rigged her phone and yo-yo together a month ago, so either device can do anything as though it's the other (except video calls, for obvious reasons), and then she told Chat she'd done it—conditional on his not abusing the privilege, would he like the same?

(Civilian Chat has the same model phone as Adrien. That's not the sort of detail she's supposed to pay attention to.)

Somewhere, therefore, Chat's phone is playing a quiet piano line, punctuated by claps, behind the soprano lyrics _I know, I'm a little delusional, a little unusual_.

* * *

Once we become sleep's suitor, Adrien thinks, turning over in bed, it turns into a fickle lover. (It's a remarkably poetic line for something he is pretty sure started in a mundane recap of current scientific understanding for some newspaper somewhere.) He doesn't particularly _want_ to be asleep right now, but he has to get _some_ rest or he'll disappoint his father, or his teachers, or his friends, or worst of all his partner.

When the ringtone he gave Ladybug plays, it takes all ten seconds for Adrien to realize it isn't a dream.

> _Lovebug:_ sorry if I'm waking you

He reaches for his phone and blinks at its screen.

> _Lovebug:_ I just

No, he's not imagining it, is he? His partner, who threatened him— _probably_ jokingly—with being skinned and trussed up like a spit-roast turkey if he texted her for any reason that wasn't strictly work-related, is awake at 2h45 and texting him.

> _Catastrophe:_ professional???
> 
> _Lovebug:_ sorry
> 
> _Lovebug is typing…_

The dots vanish.

Adrien waits.

She doesn't start typing again.

…shit.

* * *

Ladybug curls up, knees to chest, and buries her head in her arms. She is not going to cry.

Chat's right. They need to stay professional. It's safer for everyone. Including themselves. Including each other.

There's no one else she can turn to. Alya doesn't understand. Nino doesn't understand. Alix doesn't even _have_ a Miraculous yet, by any measure. Chloé—

Booted feet land soft on the balcony.

Ladybug looks up.

"Hey," says Chat Noir gently. "You okay?"

She looks away.

Chat sits down beside her. "You can text me whenever you want, you know," he says, still soft. "Whatever you want. I don't mind. I might not be able to answer right away, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear from you."

"Professional," mumbles Ladybug.

"That's your rule," Chat points out, "not mine. I'll follow it, but I don't want to, and I won't make you. And if something's happened to make you want to break it, I figure it must be pretty serious."

Ladybug shakes her head, dropping her head to her arms again. "It isn't."

"Are you sure?" He scoots a little closer. She can feel his body heat. "You look pretty upset. Seemed pretty upset yesterday afternoon, too," he adds. "Might have won that tournament faster if you weren't so upset going in."

"Stop bringing logic into this."

Chat shrugs, a gesture Ladybug feels more than sees. "All right then. I'd still rather know what it is than not. Or at least know what I can do to help you."

_I'm giving you some extra time._

_I trust you to bring me back._

"You should trust me less."

Chat stiffens beside her. "What?"

—She didn't mean to say that.

It's true, though. It's not like _I'll take a coleslaw home_ or _I'm organizing a school-wide macaron tasting_ or _I'm in love with you_ , where she regrets saying it as soon as she knows she's said it, but she has to stand by it or be proved a liar. It's _true_. The only thing wrong with it is that Chat Noir doesn't want to believe it.

Ladybug turns to watch him, still resting her head on her knees. "You said you trust me to bring you back," she reminds him. "You should trust me less."

Chat stares at her, stricken.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles. "I can't be good enough."

He shakes himself, entirely too catlike. "Where have I heard this before," Chat says, faux thoughtful. "Oh yeah—something about if you'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first try."

Ladybug curls a little tighter. She forgot Stoneheart gets bigger and stronger when he takes damage. She should never have chosen Gorizilla, who can attack with nothing but physical force, to face him. She _forgot_.

"Lieutenant Raincomprix was wrong about you then," Chat tells her, ever so gentle. "Hawkmoth was wrong about you then. You proved that to the whole city. You and me. And you're wrong about you now."

She hides her face. She can't _look_ at him right now. He's—he's _wrong_ , he—she wants to _believe_ him but—

"Have I ever lied to you, Bug?"

The honest answer is probably 'yes'. It isn't as though neither Ladybug nor Marinette has ever lied to Chat Noir.

_I'm in love with you—_

"Maybe I'm wrong now," Ladybug mumbles. "What about tomorrow?"

Chat is silent.

She peeks. He's staring at the wall above the skylight, unfocused, chewing on one lip.

"Oh," he says finally. "Stress getting to you, huh, LB?" It's such a damnably _gentle_ tone, coming from such a frustratingly _soft_ smile—

"What if I'd lost?"

"But you didn't," Chat reminds her.

"That's not the point!" she snaps. It takes effort to keep her voice down: not many people are awake and about three hours after midnight, but the last thing they need right now is anyone to realize Ladybug and Chat Noir are among them. "That's not—"

She's shaking.

Chat Noir didn't scream, when he took that ring out. _She_ did.

"What if I'd lost?" Ladybug repeats. "What if I'd lost you?"

His face goes entirely slack.

"You keep doing this to me, Chaton!" Timebreaker. Dark Cupid. Chameleon. "You always—you take the hits for me. Every time. Every single time. And you don't know how that hits me! You don't even notice—you don't even _care_!"

Her voice is shrill, and trembling, and cracks on the last word.

There's all of maybe a centimeter between her shoulder and his arm and that's _too far_.

Ladybug sobs into her partner's embrace.

He doesn't say anything; just holds her close, bracketing her body with his knees, and strokes her back, purring. She isn't sure she says anything or only thinks it all: he isn't listening anyway—too busy watching the clouded night sky.

After she's cried herself out, Chat nudges her. "Feel better?"

"…Yeah," she realizes, surprised to find the grayscale tangle of taut heartstrings has loosened enough she can almost look at it without fear it will turn indigo or violet, and shifts so she can see something other than the crook of Chat's neck. "Actually—yeah. I do."

"Good. I'm glad." Chat lets his head drop to rest on hers. "And thank all the gods Hawkmoth needs sleep."

Ladybug shudders.

"It's all right, Ladybug." His hand stops on a knot of muscle in her shoulder. "Sounds like you've been holding that back a while. I can't say I blame you, because you in purple is _absolutely_ the scariest thing I can imagine, and that _includes_ giving Stormy Weather a lever and a place to stand."

She winces.

"But Bug," Chat continues, still gentle, "you know that's not healthy."

"I know." Hell with her health. Her city is more important. "I don't care."

"I care." He presses gingerly into the knot with one knuckle. "You said I don't notice. I do. I saw you when I fell yesterday." He presses harder, in a more circular motion. "I didn't want to hurt you. But the other choices were like. We fight and I lose, taking more time and tiring you out for no good reason, and you still wouldn't be able to keep me on the field. Or we try to find a bug to exploit, taking more time, maybe a lot more time, and not being sure of getting anywhere. Or you lose, and I didn't know yet about the inventory thing."

"Mm?" Chat's knuckle hits exactly wrong: "Mmf!"

"Sorry!" He withdraws his hand, and a moment later rests his flat palm on the same spot. "I didn't know what would happen to the loser. I kind of figured I was handing Gamer my Miraculous and my identity. But better mine than yours. I just break stuff."

Ladybug snorts. "Could have tried that," she points out. "Could have tried breaking the platform."

Chat half shrugs. "I didn't think of that till you did it. I'm not sure I would have anyway. Too much risk you'd ring out first, not nearly enough chance of getting Gamer himself, and if you needed my power for the final boss, I couldn't have answered."

She pulls back to blink up at him.

"Yeah, that wasn't you," he tells her. "The whole thing was hands down the weirdest experience of my life—I don't think 'ghost' is the right word, it was really more like an interactive-ish virtual camera perspective on the game instead of being my own avatar, except without any actual hand on any actual controller—loved the pun, by the way—" He smiles, a little crooked and a little soft. "—but that was not a revolving Pearly Gates experience."

—For the first time since _I'm giving you some extra time_ , Ladybug can draw a full breath.

"Not that I knew that going in," Chat continues, almost as though he hasn't noticed, but she felt him lose some tension there. "I'm just glad Plagg agrees 'do what Ladybug wants' is a sensible limit for me to put on my power; I wasn't sure it would work until it had."

"I didn't notice the difference," Ladybug murmurs.

Chat shrugs. "I think you would have if we'd ever traded for practice? I don't know. But if one of our Miraculouses is going to end up in hands that aren't ours and we have the choice which one, it had better be mine. You can fix whatever damage he might do. Or I can," he allows. "At least I think I can. If you go down hard enough and I get to your earrings before anyone else does. Only you hadn't gone down yet, and I figured if you did, I wouldn't have any way to get to either you or your earrings."

"Stop bringing logic into this," Ladybug repeats.

"Emotional reactions without supporting rational thought don't get desirable results." It has the sound of something often repeated, a reminder he's sick of hearing. He presses the heel of his hand into the knot of muscle. "I didn't want to hurt you." She hisses; he stops pressing. "I hate how often I have to."

Ladybug relaxes into him with another sob.

"I don't know what other choice I have," Chat continues, stroking her back. "I don't know what else to do."

Neither does she.

He pauses. "Except for figure out how to pay for getting you a massage therapist." He's poking various spots on her back, now, and every one of them flares with pain. "Either you're out there hurting all day every day or you're taking liver-killing amounts of painkillers, and I don't like either answer."

Neither answer is entirely false. Nor is this more than a little false: "Honestly I don't notice anymore. Other things to worry about."

Chat groans and fumbles for his baton. "Hang on, I'm going to look up who's got the best reviews. And next time I see you, I'm giving you a stack of cash so you can't complain you can't afford the appointments."

He can do that? "Don't."

"Nope, not optional."

"Sweet of you, but—"

"Are you honestly going to tell me you won't fight better if we boost your Constitution stat?"

Ladybug chokes on a laugh. "Do you know what Master Fu's day job is?"

"…Mandarin teacher?"

Uh.

Chat blinks down at her. "So that's what the dot-dot-dot face looks like."

"He's a massage therapist," Ladybug says. "It wouldn't be _fair_ of me to ask him to use those skills without paying him, but I'm sure he'd _do_ it."

"You should ask. I'll still pay, if he's worried about money."

"Not if it's going to hurt you or your family, you won't."

Chat snorts. "Some of us work for a living." Ladybug rolls her eyes. His voice softens. "I'm good for it, Bug, you don't need to worry." He glances northwestward and winces. "Shit. I hope he's getting paid at least what the tutor I had before Syren was getting. We are legitimately improving my conversational Mandarin, my technical vocabulary, and my calligraphy. Thinking of subjects it's safe to tell my father and—uh, stepmom—we discussed is a world of hurt, of course…"

Her yo-yo's been sitting beside her since she dropped it after deciding to stop texting him. He leans them over to take it, let out a few decimeters of cord, and give it a whirl, then bounce it off his own head.

"Oh my god _Chat_."

He grins.

Technical vocabulary, huh? "So that's your writing on the transcriptions he's having me glare at?"

"—I thought you didn't speak Chinese."

"Tsheò nyí ma!" Ladybug spits at him: at his predictable "Huh?", she steals back her yo-yo to input 操你媽 and show him.

"Hey, you leave her out of this!"

—Shit, yeah, he did say _stepmom_ and there is probably a _reason_.

(And he did say _most adults do_ when Ladybug was telling the Bubbler adults care for and protect and love their children. Nino must have run into some random adult hassling an unrelated child right after leaving Adrien's house that day; she's never figured out why else the Bubbler would go after all the adults in Paris, not just the parents, not just Adrien's father. But a father and a stepmother who make Chat's home a place he doesn't want to be—oh gods she should ask him these things more often; connecting those two dots explains _so much_ about her partner—don't rule out a mother who loves him. Loved him? Whom he loves.)

"Fuck your stepmother, then," Ladybug says, and if she's too wrung out to be cheerfully teasing him instead of affecting cheer, well, she'd _like_ to be cheerfully teasing him, and hopefully he'll see that? "Or, you know, just fuck _you_."

"You off—" Chat clamps his mouth shut, his cheeks darkening.

…Yep, neither of them said _anything_. "I speak Wēnzhōuhuà at home," she says instead. "I can't read Literary Chinese so well, but I do okay in Standard Written. I'm only just starting to learn Standard Mandarin, which is going poorly, because I do not have the time. Nor anyone to talk with, except you, my mother, Master Fu, and another friend. Turning my Guardian lessons into Mandarin lessons sounds like a horrible plan; if I can find more time for Master Fu, then I need that for Guardian lessons; and I have enough trouble talking to my friend in French, thanks."

She is vaguely surprised that he ignores this. "Yeah, this is all in Literary. Under about seven levels of encryption," he adds, "which, I get he came from paranoid people, except not paranoid because people really were out to get them—" Chat rubs his ring. "But _seriously_."

"…Maybe don't say that where he'll hear." Ladybug honestly has no idea what Master Fu has and hasn't told Chat Noir about. "Sandboy—his nightmare was the people he lost. I can't tell if it's survivor's guilt or if he actually did something wrong, but either way, he wasn't any older than we are."

"Oh," says Chat, quiet.

Someone's stomach grumbles into the silence.

Chat considers. "When did you eat last? Because I don't think that was me this time."

"Don't tell me you're not getting enough to eat, kitty." When… _did_ she eat last? "Can't have you fainting mid-battle."

"I'm eating just fine." He's contemplating getting up, she's pretty sure, though she isn't sure why. "I think I'm driving my dietician to drink. I can't tell her I'm not eating Plagg's cheese, I can't tell her I do parkour and pole vaulting for funsies, and she cannot figure out why I'm not gaining weight." He shrugs. "So far she has ruled out diabetes, hyperthyroidism, several gastrointestinal disorders, and tapeworms."

" _Ew_!" Ladybug shoves him, laughing despite herself. "Ew, ew, ew!"

"Seriously, Bug, when did you eat last?" That soft look is back. "Can't have you fainting mid-battle, either." Chat pauses while she frowns. "Never mind, it's clearly too long ago," he says, bracing one hand on the wood of the terrace so he can lever them both to his feet. "Let's raid Marinette's kitchen."

"…That's technically breaking and entering," Ladybug says warily. Her decoy isn't in place, because why would it be?

Chat grins back at her, already at the skylight, and flicks the latch. "Entering, sure. Breaking, nah. Trick's gonna be—" He stops, frowning down through the skylight. "Damn it, Marinette, did you fall asleep at your desk again?"

"—Say what?" _Again_?

Not that it's not _true_ , but—

"She's not in bed," Chat tells her. He pops the skylight open and drops onto her bed. Ladybug has to follow, if only to figure out how her partner knows her civilian self keeps napping at her work station.

Which he finds empty, of course, but for her sketchbooks and pencils and crumpled rejected designs, phone and tablet and the sewing project she fell asleep on.

"Great," Chat mutters, flicking on the desk lamp by her computer. "Is she even home?"

"Maybe she's sleeping at a friend's," Ladybug suggests.

"Maybe." He gets his baton back out and starts typing. "Who, though? I don't think she ever _does_ sleepovers anywhere but here or Alya's, and I know for an absolute fact Alya snuck out tonight to sleep with Nino."

…Marinette knows no such thing.

…but that doesn't mean it can't be _true_. Marinette's been such a horrible friend lately—well, with Alya, ever—

By the desktop monitor, Marinette's phone chimes; on her hip, Ladybug's yo-yo vibrates.

"And she doesn't have her phone." Chat drops into her chair and puts his head in his hands. "Great. Wonderful. Please tell me she's asleep on the sofa downstairs, because _you_ don't look nearly okay enough for me to think it's a good idea to ditch you to go find her, _I_ am not nearly awake enough to try to watch out for you and look for her at the same time, and _she_ could be in serious trouble."

"…Why do you care so much?"

As Ladybug, she isn't supposed to know about Chat coming to commiserate with Marinette after Ladybug stood him up for a date she hadn't even said she would _go_ on the day of the Glaciator attack, the day Adrien couldn't make it to the totally-not-a-triple-date looking for André's cart. Ladybug certainly doesn't know much of anything that happened the day of or the day before Papa-Garou. Béfana is safe to know about in vague terms, but nothing about that interaction suggests any particular closeness between Chat and Marinette. Not more than there is between Chat and anyone else he's rescued more than a couple of times.

"Did she make that much of an impression during the Evillustrator attack?" Ladybug asks.

Chat doesn't look up. "No. Yes. Damn it, Ladybug! I already knew her, all right? She didn't need to impress me. She already _had_."

…She is not allowed to be blushing right now.

"She always does," Chat continues. "And I know you were on a roof around here watching me make a fool out of myself trying to impress _her_ , don't even bother denying it. Though it really would have been nice if one of you had _told me_ you'd cooked up that plan together. Half that overacting was so she wouldn't know how much I was panicking because I had no fucking clue what I was going to do if I got the akuma and you weren't there."

Oh, _fuck_. She hadn't thought of that.

It was never going to be a _problem_ that Ladybug wasn't there, so long as Marinette _was_ and could get out of sight for a moment, then come at the scene from another angle. But—

"I'm sorry."

Chat lifts his head. He doesn't look angry now, or scared, or even frustrated. Still just…soft.

(Tender, she might say, if that weren't so—such a _romantic_ choice of word.)

"It's okay," Chat says. "It worked out. Except for how I fucked up her first impression of me a _second_ time," he grumbles, and drops his head into his hands again. "I need sleep. I need to glue my mouth shut before I say anything else you don't want to hear."

His identity, Ladybug realizes dimly. Civilian Chat Noir is someone Marinette met before the Evillustrator attack. Someone she doesn't like.

Someone who wants Marinette to like him.

She needs sleep, too. And food, probably. And generally to stop talking and kick her partner out before either of them say anything they can't take back.

"You want her to like you," Ladybug says.

"Of course I do! Have you _met_ her?" Chat's up now and pacing. "Brave, ambitious, clever, creative, dedicated, loyal, funny, Charisma stat through the roof, and when you asked if I think she's cute, you were seriously understating the case, my Lady—I think the only people in our year who _wouldn't_ melt like wet cotton candy if she decided to go flirt with them are the gay boys, the straight girls, Ivan, and Alix!"

Which is to say, the people who wouldn't be attracted to Marinette regardless, and the most romantically loyal of the taken ones who might.

Uh.

"And yes," Chat continues, stopping at her sewing machine to frown down at the seam she fell asleep on, "the cotton candy includes me! Fortunately for my poor sad heart," he says, extracting the fabric from the sewing machine with an unexpected ease, "she isn't interested in civilian me." He snaps both threads with a claw. "I don't know what I'd do if she were."

C:\Users\mdc\ blinks its cursor, awaiting command prompts from Ladybug, whose possible responses to this are all _blank_.

"Everybody knows about my hopeless celebrity crush on you," Chat continues, and she should tell him to stop poking around her sewing notions, "and my equally hopeless ill-fated pining after a nameless professional connection who is also you. She took it okay when I said I couldn't think about dating her because of you—this is ridiculous." He starts ripping out her botched seam with one careful claw. "I mean, give or take an akuma attack, but it wasn't _Marinette_ got akuma-spawning upset over it, and if I'd thought to turn her down on the spot, even that might not have happened. But if—"

He's right about that, at least, Ladybug thinks, dazed, as Chat flails for words. She honestly did not know he spent any time in post-game analysis, never mind enough time to figure that out without prompting.

He holds the fabric under the desk light. "I _think_ that's got it," he says, mostly to himself. "The rest isn't _that_ obviously crooked…you're not sleeping enough, are you." It's not a question, but is he directing it to Ladybug or to Marinette? "You're better than this. Except when you're stressing yourself to death."

"Chat?"

"I'm getting more worried by the minute," Chat tells her, setting the fabric next to her sewing machine. His tail's lashing. "If she's making mistakes this clumsy, she's more tired than I thought, and I already thought she's overworked and exhausted. I haven't even talked to her in days, I'm not sure Alya's talked to her in over a week—"

That—is not impossible.

She's running through a mental list of schoolmates now; she can't help herself. Chat Noir must attend Lycée Anaïs Nin with her, and must have attended Collège Françoise Dupont with her, judging by how quickly he arrives at battles; leaving out all the adults she knows Chat isn't, and barring some classmates' siblings—mostly Alya's sisters and Juleka's brother—and Manon, she hardly interacts with anyone outside her yearmates anyway.

Chat is not, however, in her own class: except for Adrien and herself, they have all been akumatized, and Chat Noir has fought beside her against every single one of them. That doubly rules out Luka, Nora, Etta, and Ella. She's seen Chat standing beside Adrien, as well, and heard from Adrien inside one of Horrificator's claustrophobic little pod prisons while Chat was roaming the room, and Adrien may not have any idea of _how_ she likes him—or how much—but she knows he knows _that_ she likes him.

Who in the other classes does Marinette know well enough for Chat Noir to be able to look at her imperfect stitching and realize there's more stress in her life than civilian Chat knew about?

Who in the other classes does she talk to regularly enough that going a whole week without talking is worthy of note?

"My Lady?" Chat's hands are on her shoulders, shaking, and shaking her ever so gently. She blinks up at him. "You really don't look so good," he tells her: is that a trace of hidden panic in his voice? He steers her over to the chaise longue, and she goes, turning over yearmates' faces and names.

He can't be Marc Anciel or Jean Duparc, of course. Both have been akumatized and Chat was in both battles. She can rule out Tsurugi Kagami, Ondine Farrell, and Aurore Beauréal on the same grounds. She wouldn't think about any of the girls, except none of the boys in her year make sense, not one: Marc, Aurore, Ondine, and Kagami are the only people in her year and not her class who she ever talks to at all!

And it's not impossible that Chat Noir is trans; after all, Rena Rouge is built along the lines of who Alya wishes she were. Civilian Chat might look like the femmest femme girl ever to femme, out of self-defense, and have very little idea who in his life wouldn't object to learning he's a boy. Marinette isn't sure about Lila, Chloé, or Sabrina—she's fairly certain Lila doesn't _know_ about Alix or Marc, at least—but everyone else in her class is cool with Alix and Marc, so if civilian Chat _is_ trans, she should introduce—?

Chat's talking again. With effort, she drags her focus over to his voice: "—be all right staying here?"

"Huh?"

"I need to go find Marinette," Chat repeats patiently. "I hope she's here, but if not, I need you to stay here, okay? You don't look up to our usual runs and I don't want you hurt."

No, he doesn't, does he? He never does.

He will wield the blade that dices her heart up for kebabs, because—and she cannot _argue_ this because he is _right_ —he has too few choices and the alternatives are chancier or will take too much longer than his simply trading his life for a tactical advantage, trusting her to bring him back. But he never wants her _hurt_.

Chat is still standing there. Something is scaring him. Since she's only said his name and an interrogative noise since he noticed how tired Marinette's seam means she must be—Ladybug thinks it might be her.

"I'm going to go see if Marinette is downstairs," Chat tells her. "I'm going to bring you up some food. Then if I don't find Marinette here, I'm going out to look for her. You need to stay here."

Ladybug nods, he smiles, and he's down through the trap door before she can remind him not to wake her parents.

Who _is_ he?

—Her yo-yo is on her hip. A message waits there, from one of Chat Noir's selves to Marinette.

If he sent that from his civilian number, and he's in her contacts—as he should be, if a week without talking to her is a few days too long—

Marinette has one new message. Ladybug stares at the name on the yo-yo screen.

Of course. Of _course_. He's the right height and build and hair color, and his irises are the right shade of green. Everything she thought proved them different people can be explained by lies, decoys, or simple tricks, all of which are things she herself has done. Even if she could be certain she had ever seen them stand side by side, wasn't she beside herself during Timebreaker? Won't Alix soon be able to wrinkle time?

She knew Chat Noir fences. She knew Adrien puns. She knew Chat Noir is lonely. She knew Adrien hates being home.

> _Adrien_ 💌 _:_ Hey, Marinette, sorry to bother you, but I had a nightmare of something bad happening to you and if you're awake it would help a lot if you let me know you're okay

She told Chat Noir to jump from the top of Tour Montparnasse, and Adrien leaped, sooner than she expected.

Chat Noir blocked Timebreaker's blow, and Adrien died in her arms.

She would have traded her earrings to Volpina for Chat Noir's life, but Adrien would not let her.

Chat Noir didn't scream, when Adrien took that ring out.

She cannot unknow this.

With trembling fingers, Ladybug takes a screenshot of the message Adrien sent Marinette, and puts it in a message for Ladybug to send Chat Noir. Leaving Marinette's phone untouched on her desk, she waits.

Downstairs, she hears the _beebeebeebeep beebeebeebeep beebeebe—_ of her parents' alarm.

"Fuck," mutters Ladybug, and sends the message, and adds:

> 🐞 _:_ roll with it

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

"Spots off."

Marinette settles the sleeping Tikki in her nest out of sight and shuffles down to the kitchen. Papa is looming over Chat Noir, arms folded, while Chat babbles apologies; there's a block of cheddar on a cutting board, with a few thin slices and a dirty paring knife beside it, and an unused bread knife beside that. "Leave him alone, Papa," says Marinette, getting both their attention—how did Chat not hear her coming? Marinette wasn't trying to be stealthy—and Papa misses how Chat's stance eases. "They have a standing invi-i-iiit—"

But she doesn't _want_ to be yawning.

Chat moves around Papa, tail twitching. "Hey, Marinette," he says: it isn't the same soft tone he's been using with Ladybug all night, but it's close. "You should go to sleep."

"I _was_ sleeping," Marinette lies, grumpily. "Adrien woke me up."

"Adrien did, did he," says Papa mildly. He can't see the barely hidden panic in Chat's expression.

"Texted." She…actually is kind of hungry, and if she goes to the bread box, she doesn't have to see what Chat's face is doing. Papa can't be in the room when they talk about this. _Cannot_. Marinette slices the stale bit off the baguette, then whacks off a fifteen-centimeter chunk and tosses it toward Chat. "Eat."

"And why is Adrien texting you so early?" asks Papa.

Marinette shrugs. "Nightmare. Didn't ask." She takes two of the cheddar bits and puts them on her slice of bread, then looks up at Chat, holding the chunk he caught and staring at her. "Eat," she repeats. "Isn't that what you came for?"

…So that's what he meant by the dot-dot-dot face.

Chat shakes himself; at some point Marinette will want an explanation of how his body language is so feline when she doesn't think hers is very coccinellid at all. He rips a mouthful off the bread with his teeth, sets the rest on the counter, and goes for his baton.

Marinette watches him from the corner of her eye, pouring herself a glass of water, as he checks the messages from Ladybug and goes utterly, utterly still.

"You should get ready for work, Papa," she says, as though nothing of note just happened.

Chat clicks his baton closed and puts it back at his waist. "Thank you for your hospitality, M. Dupain," he says, picking up the paring knife and returning to slicing the cheddar. "Sorry we didn't tell you. I thought—" He cuts himself off, giving Marinette a significant glance. "Never mind."

Papa doesn't look happy. "—You're not upset, are you?" Marinette asks, heart rate spiking. "I just—haven't thought it's worth bothering you, when I know you're happy to feed them both." Papa's expression doesn't change. "…Right?"

"I am a little concerned," Papa says slowly, "that this young man has been visiting you without our knowledge. Especially at night."

Chat flushes.

"It's not like that!" Marinette protests. It—maybe could be. Later. But it isn't now. "He's a perfect gentleman to everyone but Ladybug. And he's never, ever hurt me."

Papa raises his eyebrows and glares down at Chat, who shrinks back.

…Papa-Garou. Right. "Please don't tell me you're blaming _him_ for _my_ getting you akumatized," says Marinette, and slams open the cabinet with mugs. "Tea, Chat?"

"…Why not," says Chat with a sigh, putting down the paring knife. "I wasn't getting any sleep tonight anyway." He tears another large bite off his bread.

Marinette gets two ordinary mugs and Papa's large one, then hesitates artfully before reaching for another. "Will Ladybug want any tea?"

"Please no," says Chat, slicing off three more pieces of bread. "I think she spends too much time caffeinated and not enough asleep as it is. Could you pass me a plate?" Marinette gets him one, then moves to fill the teakettle. "She needs to eat first, but I want her to nap before she needs to go anywhere. She was zoning out badly enough just now I'm not entirely sure she knows I left the room."

His eyes are intent on her, in a way she has never seen from either of them. Either of _him_.

"She doesn't take care of herself very well," Chat adds.

Marinette measures loose black tea by the teaspoon into each infuser and ignores him.

Papa frowns at Chat again, but differently. "Neither of you can be much older than my daughter. Who's supposed to be taking care of you?"

Chat shrugs, looking around for the cookie stash. "People who are doing the best they can for us, given what they know of us," he answers quietly. "People who would do better, if they knew better. But for their safety and ours, we cannot let them know."

"Your safety must not mean much," Papa observes, "since the powers come from the Miraculous jewels—yes?—and both of you are adolescents. Surely adults—?"

"There are actual reasons for us being teenagers," Chat tells them, piling cookies on his plate. "Neuroplasticity, and how puberty affects magical potential, and stuff. I don't understand most of it. The—the Miraculouses _could_ have—come to—people who turned eighteen before Stoneheart." He's choosing his words with great care. Marinette isn't sure she knows everything he's avoiding saying. "It might be more ethical if they had."

He bites off another chunk of bread, letting that sentence hang there while he chews.

"But those adults wouldn't have been as good at it as we are," he says. "And I say 'wouldn't have been', not 'wouldn't _be_ ', because I don't know that they'd have lasted this long."

Chat picks up the plate and starts toward the stairs, then stops, his back to them.

"Somewhere around here live a couple of girls, about as old now as we were when we started. Maybe a bit younger." Chat's tone is matter-of-fact, his stance not tense, but his ears are twitching, his tail low and curved up at the tip. "Similar magical potential to Ladybug and me. If either of us had refused before we first transformed, the Miraculouses would have gone to these girls next. I don't know their names, or their faces, or their—magical signatures—to recognize either of them if I passed them on the street.

"Which is fortunate for whoever's supposed to be looking after the chatonne," Chat continues, tone perfectly level, "because one of the things the Cat Miraculous looks for almost never turns up in someone with a happy childhood." His tail is lashing now. "The coccinelle is probably doing all right. And I can't worry too much about the chatonne. I _have_ to put Ladybug first. I hope they've found each other by now, anyway. They're probably both happier if they have.

"But—that's my sister, you know? My little sister." Chat looks back at Papa, his eyes damp. "And she doesn't have anyone like you."

Marinette knew none of that.

Footsteps upstairs: Chat's posture snaps to tense and alert. Maman, who might well go up to check on Marinette before coming down to find the voices, and who would certainly find Marinette's bedroom empty, when Papa thought Ladybug was waiting there—

" _Damn_ it, Ladybug," mutters Chat, and bolts upstairs. "Sorry!" Marinette hears him call back to Maman, who arrives in the kitchen moments later, wearing a bathrobe and a confused expression.

Marinette whacks her head three times against the wall and follows him up.

The bedroom is empty, naturally. One of her crumpled designs has been smoothed out by her keyboard, with a note scribbled in the corner: _thanks, sorry_ above _(this is better than you think it is)_ and signed _CN_. "I hope they get home okay," Marinette says, since Maman is close behind her; she collects her phone and climbs up to her bed to latch the skylight. The plate is peeking out from under her pillow.

"Do they—visit often?" Maman asks.

"I don't think Chat Noir likes going home," Marinette answers, exactly as though that's an answer to the question at all, and even a complete one. "You should go have breakfast."

"…All right," says Maman, distinctly dubious, and Marinette hears the trap door click shut behind her. Fortunately, this is before her phone starts chiming like Notre Dame ringing the hour:

> 😸🖤 _:_ 🥐➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🧀➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🥓➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🍎➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🥗➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🥛➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🚰➡🐞👄
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🐞➡😴💤

…dead silent mode is a good thing, clearly. Marinette nibbles halfheartedly at one of the slices of cheddar (he took some of that and the bread he was eating), taking the plate back down to her desk.

> 🐞 _:_ 😴💤📆
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ yes, sleep for a week
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ excellent plan, approved
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ i'll wake you for akumas
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ eat first
> 
> 🐞 _:_ 😴💤 IS FOR 📆
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ …you didn't say you'll sleep when you're dead
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ i'll take it???
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ eat at least
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ please
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ i knew you were both way busy but
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ terrified for you now
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ let me be the strong one
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🥺
> 
> 🐞 _:_ 😲
> 
> 🐞 _:_ 😸🖤🍪
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ ?
> 
> 🐞 _:_ 😸🖤🥧?
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 😳😻
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🍳🐞
> 
> 🐞 _:_ 💩
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🍽
> 
> 🐞 _:_ 🤢
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🤒
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🥢
> 
> 🐞 _:_ …🦗🌹🌻?
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ that can be arranged! eat SOMETHING now please? i'll feed you at school?
> 
> 🐞 _:_ we shouldn't let anyone know anything's different
> 
> 🐞 _:_ just in case
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 🤬😬🤐
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ sorry

Yeah, she's not going to be able to keep up the pretense very well either, is she? Chat Noir is _Adrien_. Marinette has never had any difficulty talking to Chat Noir.

> 🐞 _:_ don't apologize, it's not like Alya won't notice something's weird the minute I say three sentences in a row to you without my words going 😵🥴🥵🤯

…oh gods Adrien is Chat Noir. She's in love with Adrien. She's in love with _Chat Noir_.

No. No. _No_. Fuck fuck fuck _no_ —

> 🐞 _:_ let's try for subtle I guess?
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ 😻😽

Oh gods no.

> 🐞 _:_ don't push your luck

Marinette thumbs off her phone screen and buries her face in her pillow.

When Maman comes back to make sure she's up for school, Marinette pries herself off her damp pillow to find she's missed eight messages, four alarms, and two calls:

> 😸🖤 _:_ sorry
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ sorry
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ please don't cry
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ let me in
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ please
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ marinette
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ …at least you're sleeping
> 
> 😸🖤 _:_ see you at school

Marinette flips back to the blue side of her phone, to reply to Adrien's earlier text:

> 誠敏嵐 _:_ I'm awake

She didn't sleep. She knows she didn't sleep.

> 誠敏嵐 _:_ I'm sorry

She can think only of Chat Noir's broken body at the base of Tour Montparnasse. Adrien with fractured ribs at the very least, if not ruptured veins, dissolving organs. Chat Noir in repose, glittering gold.

Adrien embracing her, statuesque and fading.

> _Adrien_ 💌 _:_ 😺
> 
> _Adrien_ 💌 _:_ what for?

He doesn't remember that. He does not remember _abandoning_ her like that.

Not that time.

Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug, and whatever he may think Marinette feels about Adrien, he _knows_ Marinette is in love with Chat Noir—

> _Adrien_ 💌 _:_ I have sunflower seeds and iced mocha for you, eat tasty carbs and protein though, fruit/veg too maybe, HYDRATE

And Marinette is going to pack a lunch before leaving for school, she knows, because last night Maman did this lemony baked salmon thing and there's leftovers in the refrigerator. Cats are obligate carnivores; humans are not, but if _she_ functions better on a diet heavy in coccinellid-style foods (and she has for over a year), then _he_ must need much more meat than his dietician expects. If Adrien, who has been getting taller at a breakneck pace (and she'll be surprised to learn Chat Noir _hasn't_ been trying to put on muscle), isn't gaining weight fast enough to please his dietician—

(She knew that about her crush. She did not know that about her partner.)

> 誠敏嵐 _:_ thank you

Marinette thumbs to his contact.

> 誠敏嵐 _:_ coffee for you too?
> 
> _Adrien:_ ☕☕☕

His contact name looks empty without the love-letter emoji. But she can't give him a cat, or anything with a heart—

> _Adrien:_ i catnapped i'm fine

—oh, of course—

> 🤛🏼 _Adrien:_ where are you it's almost class
> 
> 誠敏嵐 🤜🏻 _:_ 🤬

And now, between missing her alarms and thinking about him, she is about to be _horribly_ late, for _no_ good reason—

What is she going to _do_?

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](http://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


End file.
